1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a teaching or diagnostic aid and/or knowledge recording system whereby images or portions of images may be selected, and labeled, and concurrent image-specific commentary applied to the visual image to create a teaching session which is indexable for later study, creation of further sessions, or research.
2. Description of the Related Art
In the diagnostic or teaching environment, such as a hospital or a medical school, great technological changes have taken place in terms of information storage, imaging, recording, and display technology. Yet the way in which knowledge is passed on has changed little. Data, or case, interpreters and learners meet in small groups and discuss individual case studies with a teacher or each other, to share knowledge and gain experience. When such sessions take place, the experiential knowledge is shared in informal and sometimes haphazard ways and only through a large number of repeated sessions is the individual""s knowledge increased. Especially where the case study is in motion, e.g., a video presentation of biological events occurring in sequence over a time line, the record of such a teaching or diagnostic session is hard to establish with sufficient clarity in order to allow future users the benefit of a review of the session.
Particularly in the field of internal medicine, imaging technology has revolutionized our understanding of abnormalities in biological and neurological systems. Fast changing technological improvements, impacting the quality of the images, make it even more difficult to compare cases and build an understanding of what the normal state is. The processes for combining data interpretation, documentation and retrieval are currently inefficient or lead to a high degree of abstraction in the diagnostic record. Despite all efforts in automated image recognition, the human brain remains the best system for pattern recognition. Therefore, it would be desirable to match an image data base with appropriate indexing to the diagnostic abilities of the human data interpreter.
By way of illustration, in the medical field, a cardiologist may review live or recorded echocardiograms with medical students on a video screen in an informal session as need or opportunity arises. Deictic gestures will usually include pointing to particular areas of the screen as the cardiac events happen in time. A commentary about the image will accompany each gesture. However, when the session ends the externalized knowledge expressed in gestures and accompanying commentary during the session is largely unrecorded and unavailable for future use. All that is left is fingerprints on the screen.
Known diagnostic systems utilizing video recording and commentary are largely concerned with the image recording and display of the biological events to further automate diagnosis of the event and location of problem areas. Systems such as detailed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,619,995 to Lobodzinski or in U.S. Pat. No. 5,235,510 to Yamada et al. are sophisticated tools of medical practice but do not appear to disclose critical aspects of a teaching, or interactive interpretation, system suitable for every day use in a real world, informal, teaching hospital environment.
What is needed in such environments, and many other informal teaching or diagnostic environments, is a system whereby all aspects of a teaching, or diagnostic, session occurring around an in-motion event, including gestures and commentaries of the students and teachers, may be recorded in time-synchronized fashion to capture the knowledge expressed during the session for later use. It is desirable that such a system be easily learned and usable without special techniques. It is also desirable that the system be utilizable with a variety of video formats so as to be applicable to past and present recorded image data formats. It is further desirable that the knowledge expressed be cataloged, or indexed, for convenient retrieval and for comparison to contrasting, or similar, case studies to further heighten the efficiency of learning and sharing of experiential knowledge.
xe2x80x9cFramexe2x80x9d or xe2x80x9cfull framexe2x80x9d refers to an image covering the entire display screen.
xe2x80x9cInserted framexe2x80x9d refers to a full image displayed as a smaller portion inserted into the full frame analogous to a xe2x80x9cwindowxe2x80x9d or xe2x80x9cpicture in picturexe2x80x9d.
xe2x80x9cSubframexe2x80x9d refers to a portion of a fill image as selected by the viewer.
xe2x80x9cConcurrent commentaryxe2x80x9d refers to comments made at the time of, or relating to, the subframe image selection.
The present invention teaches method and apparatus for recording experiential knowledge desirably including playback of in-motion events (video), the recording of deictic gestures linked to particular images in the video, and the linking of commentary accompanying the deictic gestures, with the video images. The commentaries may then be indexed for easy retrieval and for cross-reference to images bearing on a similar topic.
In general the present invention is accomplished by overlaying an interpretation layer on the video, or image layer, to record the deictic gestures of a viewer in time and location synchronization with the video, through a software application. The interpretation layer will also record comments and associate the comments with the gestures. Put in other words, the interpretation layer will create a gesture map and comment map overlaid on the video sequence with all three being synchronized to the video, whether by time code, frame and line code, or other image identifier accompanying the video. The present invention is most efficacious with in-motion images but may work equally well with a series of static images as the image layer.
Deictic gestures may be registered by any suitable means such as mouse operated cursor, a touch screen mechanism, light pen, or other means, now known or later developed, as dictated by the functional and economic considerations of the builder or user. Commentary may be continuously recorded and coded with the video and gestures, or the act of recording a gesture may open a window for comment specific to the gesture. Commentary may be entered vocally, through a keyboard, or through a menu of comment options, or any other means suitable to the application. The video may be paused, or looped between certain frames, to more easily accommodate the user in placing more than one gesture tag in a frame. The gestures and indexed commentary may be labeled a xe2x80x9csessionxe2x80x9d and will be indexed appropriately. Later sessions having additional gestures and commentary may be built upon a previous session.
By replaying the session, a later viewer is privy to the deictic gestures and accompanying comments of previous viewers thereby gaining a much more thorough understanding of the experiential knowledge, or areas of question, or both, expressed by the prior viewers. By linking through the index, the viewer may access any number of data bases to enhance their appreciation of the subject matter of the present session, further enhancing the value of the educational experience.